the president, john boehner, nancy pelosi, harry reid, mcconnell, you don't need his support because the democrat controlled center. it is a sit doesn't have a -- >> mcconnell is very important because in the senate, you need a super majority to pass. a reason why i think if there's some kind of a deal, and i'm not that optimistic, why it has to start in the senate is you need republicans to buy in, even a little bit, in order to send any measure to the house. so by definition, to get 60 votes, you need republicans on it. that's enough to call whatever the deal is, bipartisan, which may make it easier on the house. as i said, i'm not that optimistic. >> trace: why are you not optimistic? >> part of it is structurele. house members got back at 6:30 sunday night. what if the bad weather comes that's predicted. unless a framework is hammered out that people could agree to, even a stopgap measure, there's not a lot of hours left to get everything down. a realistic deadline is january 3, none, when the new congress comes in because as we just heard, the impact of the fiscal cliff in terms